Germany allows violent hooligan to attend World Cup

THE German neo-Nazi who almost killed a policeman during the last World Cup has been freed to travel to this year's tournament in Japan and Korea, The Telegraph has learnt.

Markus Warnecke became the most notorious hooligan in world football after beating gendarme Daniel Nivel into a coma with a plank and a metal bar amid rioting during the 1998 tournament.

Pictures of the attack prompted an international outcry, with the German team offering to withdraw from the tournament and Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor at the time, describing it as a "national disgrace".

Warnecke was quietly released from prison two weeks ago, however, after serving just three years of a five-year sentence. German police have confirmed that they do not intend to stop him travelling to the Far East for this year's World Cup.

The disclosure has prompted an angry response from British MPs, who have written to ministers demanding action. Marsha Singh, a leading member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said that he would raise Warnecke's case with the Home and Foreign Office this week.

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"I am flabbergasted. I would have thought that fellow European countries would have a common policy on this. We are stopping our hooligans from travelling and they should stop theirs," he said. "Places like Japan and South Korea are not used to handling thugs like these. The Germans should have monitored the movements of far-Right activists and banned him from going."

Warnecke, 31, became the world's most notorious football hooligan in 1998 after he was pictured stooping over the bloody body of Mr Nivel in a side street in Lens, northern France.

He and three fellow extremists cornered the gendarme, kicked and stamped on him, smashed his head with a metal bar and then pounded him with a wooden advertising board in a 20-minute attack. When arrested, one of the gang said the attack was a "celebration" of Germany's 2-2 draw with Yugoslavia.

Mr Nivel, a 46-year-old father-of-two, was in a coma for six weeks. Today, he is severely brain-damaged, is blind in one eye and can only mutter a few words. Mr Kohl led German apologies over the incident and organised a donation of £200,000 to Mr Nivel's family.

Now, however, the incident has been largely forgotten by the German authorities. Warnecke, a tattooist who has a string of convictions for violence, left prison last month and is thought to have returned to his home town of Hildesheim, near Hanover.

Walter Walcott, a spokesman for Hildesheim police, said that Warnecke had served his sentence and could now go to the Far East to watch his team.

"He does not have to check in with police. He can go to any football match he wants to. As far as the police are concerned he has served his sentence and that's it," he said.

"The fact that he was involved in the Nivel case is not enough for him to constitute a threat. As far as we are concerned there would have to be an additional indication that he was about to commit an act of violence."

Like England, Germany will play their World Cup group games in Japan, although the two teams will not meet in the tournament's early stages. Germany play Ireland in Ibaraki on June 5.

The German police force's laissez-faire attitude is in stark contrast to that taken in Britain, where about 1,030 people with convictions for a football-related offence will be banned from travelling abroad during the month-long World Cup tournament.

Officers from the National Criminal Intelligence Service will liaise with the Japanese authorities to ensure that hooligans are stopped at airports and ports before entering the country.

Fred Broughton, the chairman of the Police Federation, condemned the German authorities for failing to stop Warnecke.

"We are making determined attempts to keep convicted British hooligans from attending the World Cup. Our European Union partners should make the same stringent efforts. Police officers in Japan and Korea deserve protection," he said.